Treasurers have questions about stablecoins

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Organizations are showing interest in stablecoins. But the next step—establishing a stablecoin strategy—requires finance to understand both how to use stablecoins and the best ways to manage them, experts told CFO Brew.

Translation: It’s time for CFOs to get their treasurers involved.

“Treasury typically plays a very big role, especially in the liquidity aspect” of an organization’s stablecoin program, according to Bob Stark, global head of market strategy with treasury management platform Kyriba.

Growing interest. Both research and anecdotal evidence suggests that finance leaders are at least intrigued by, if not already using, stablecoins.

A September EY-Parthenon survey of 350 corporate and financial services executives globally found that 13% of respondents already used stablecoins, while more than half (54%) expected to be using them in the next six to 12 months. Deloitte’s Q2 2025 CFO Signals survey of 200 North American finance executives found that 15% expected their companies would probably accept stablecoins as a payment method within two years.

Stark told CFO Brew he’s talking with organizations regularly on “best practices around getting some value out of stablecoins that can actually really impact the organization positively, top line or bottom line.”

Treasury readiness. That interest led Kyriba to partner with the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) to create a stablecoins certificate program in April, which the AFP noted in an announcement is “designed to help treasurers move from awareness to actual readiness.”

From what Tom Hunt, director of AFP’s treasury and payments practice, is seeing, there’s a lot of “buzz in the industry” around stablecoins as organizations seek the best use cases. In fact, Hunt said he had fielded two calls on stablecoins the same day he spoke with us.

Organizations are asking where they can apply stablecoins, what their cost-adjustment features are, and whether they’re a new payment rail like Real-Time Payments (RTP), Hunt said. Spoiler alert: Stablecoins are a different rail since they’re on blockchain, and have “a lower cost transfer in many cases,” according to Stark.

If a CFO’s stablecoins interest is piqued, treasurers ought to be ready to answer their questions, Hunt said.

“The certificate is really meant to be a level setting [of] here’s how you can explain it internally,” he said. The program, he added, is meant to teach participants, “here’s what it is, first of all, but then…if the CFO asks you about this, you’d better have a good answer. If you go through this certificate, you’ll have your answer.”

Consider this. Some remain skeptical, Hunt conceded—though he argued that skeptics may not understand key differences between stablecoins and other types of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin. Stablecoins are designed to remain stable in value, and are typically pegged to fiat currencies like the US dollar.

Indeed, CFOs in the Deloitte survey cited price volatility as the biggest barrier to crypto (not just stablecoins) adoption. More than two-fifths (43%) of respondents included price volatility among their top three concerns with crypto. In second place was complexity around accounting and controls, at 42%. Deloitte noted that these findings aren’t surprising, given bitcoin’s occasionally wild fluctuations in value—such as a 28% price drop over 10 weeks in early 2025.

Once an organization understands stablecoins’ stable value (it’s in the name, after all), they typically ask next how they move money in and out of them, Stark said. Part of understanding all that is knowing all the stakeholders in a stablecoins program, he said.

And there are a lot of stakeholders, including more “non-bank players” than traditional schemes, Hunt said, including custodians, asset managers, the minting company, the burning company, and the cyber insurance carrier. Within the organization, procurement typically gets involved (especially when paying suppliers with stablecoins), along with legal and technology leaders, Stark added.

The AFP’s stablecoins certificate launched this month, but when we spoke with Stark and Hunt in May, there was a waitlist of people wanting to enroll. Stark said that interest was coming from treasurers and other parts of the finance function, as well as banks and fintechs.